Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: A Time To Take Stock
11/30/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
A Northwestern team struck severely by a rash of injuries in the final few weeks of the season gave all it could in its pursuit of bowl-eligibility, but ultimately came up one win short with a loss to Illinois on Saturday. Skip Myslenski reviews the game and mood of a hungry Wildcats team entering the offseason.
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He had made the first start of his college career against his team's in-state rival with both bragging rights and a bowl bid on the line. So later, after it was over, it was natural to ask Zack Oliver if nerves had gotten to him.
"I always tell myself, I don't necessarily get nervous," he said. "I honestly think I went out there, I might have been -- I don't want to say overconfident -- I might have thought I had it more in the bag than I did. Out there, stuff's not exactly how you expect it. You prepare a certain way, then things change. That's life as well. That's something I'm going to have to get used to."
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The 'Cats picked up one first down on their opening possession of their Saturday showdown with Illinois. But then, after a three-yard completion and an incompletion and a false start penalty, Oliver threw a deep out to Tony Jones, who was open some 15 yards down the field. The pass was way short, which brought on the punting team.
Their defense held here and so out again came their offense, which two plays later faced a third-and-two at the 11. Here Oliver dropped and scrambled and then, with green grass still in front of him, slid too early and so picked up only one. "He thought he was already past the first-down marker," Pat Fitzgerald would explain. "So I'm not upset with him for sliding. I just wish he had a little better awareness of where the first down marker was."
"I thought I had the first down," the 6-foot-4, 240-pound Oliver later echoed. "That was just a lack of awareness on my part. I'm definitely not afraid of contact. I should have just put my head down. That won't happen again."
Again the `Cat defense held, which mitigated that mistake, and soon enough their offense was looking at a third-and-two at their 25. This time Matt Alviti, their option threat, was inserted at quarterback, and he took the snap and began rolling left. But he didn't do the expected and run. He instead pulled up and threw a short dump pass toward a wide-open Dan Vitale, but the offering was so far over his head that the superback didn't even bother jumping for it.
This time the defense would not erase that mistake and just over four-and-a-half minutes later, the Illini completed a 56-yard drive to go up seven. Now, on the very first play after the kickoff, Oliver threw into double coverage and was picked, which led to another Illini touchdown just 37 seconds later. (They then missed the extra point.) This time the 'Cats offense responded by handing the ball to Justin Jackson, who would end another brilliant afternoon with 130 net rushing yards and 46 more on three receptions.
Here he gained six, then seven, then 12 on the last play of the first quarter, and then he opened the second quarter by gaining three more. But now, on second-and-seven from the Illini 47, the snap was high and Oliver, after corralling it, was late handing the ball off to Jackson. That resulted in a fumble that was recovered by Illinois, which five plays later kicked a field goal to go up 16-0. "I tried to grab it, tried to keep the play going," Oliver later said, reflecting on both this moment and the changing circumstances he had alluded to earlier.
"Looking back, I should have just grabbed it and not tried to hand it off. I should have just run myself and taken what I could get. That was something, I wasn't necessarily used to being in that situation."
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The 14-point loss that ended the `Cats season was not on Zack Oliver's shoulders alone. He would, in fact, steady himself in the second half, rally his team to within eight and finish his day with decent numbers (23-of-38 for 221 yards and a touchdown to go along with that lost fumble and three interceptions). But the uncertainty he manifested while replacing Trevor Siemian, the mistakes he made while facing live bullets for the first time, the lack of awareness he exhibited in situations so new to him -- all of that was representative of the 'Cats' condition in this final game of their season.
For here they were a battered group, a beat up battalion at the end of a long -and-costly campaign. They were without their leading receiver, Kyle Prater, and three other receivers who had gone down earlier in the year (Christian Jones, Miles Shuler and Stephen Buckley). They were without Collin Ellis, their middle linebacker and one of their captains, and an astounding seven defensive backs who were on their roster back in August.
One of those, Daniel Jones, missed nearly all of two seasons due to injuries. Another of them, Dwight White, had to retire due to a rare medical condition. Others of them, like corners Nick VanHoose and Marcus McShepard and safeties Traveon Henry and Godwin Igwebuike, had gone down with more traditional football injuries. Still, no matter the cause, here was the result. Jimmy Hall, a former safety who this season had switched to linebacker, played his old position on Saturday. And Kyle Queiro, who had been exclusively a safety until a month ago, started Saturday at corner. And, when Jarrell Williams replaced him in the second half on Saturday, he became the fifth 'Cat to man that position this fall.
"It limited some of the things we could call today just because of match-ups. Obviously, credit our opponent. They were able to take advantage of it," Fitzgerald would say of his defense's tattered state. Still, after Jackson broke off a 35-yard run and Oliver hit Cameron Dickerson for a two-point conversion, the 'Cats were down just eight with 14:05 remaining. An improbable rally, a Hollywood ending appeared possible now. But this was harsh reality and, just three plays later, Illini running back Josh Ferguson took a simple off-tackle play 46 yards for a touchdown. Now the 'Cats were again down 15 and, just over seven minutes later, their season effectively ended when Oliver threw a pick six.
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And so, after five straight bowl-game appearances, the 'Cats will be spending their second straight holiday season at home. That was why, on Saturday, much of Fitzgerald's post-game press conference was given overt to the future and here-- as he had often done this fall -- he stressed the need for competition. There would be, he said, an open competition at quarterback among Oliver and Alviti and current freshman Clayton Thorson. There was the need, he said once again, for competition among the back-ups on the offensive line. "That next level of guy that has not stepped up yet has got to do that," he declaimed.
Christian Jones and Shuler and Buckley are expected back from their injuries. But Prater and Tony Jones will be gone and so, he went on, there will be competition among the wide receivers. "We built this thing to where we went to five straight bowl games on competition. We frankly haven't had it," he also said.
Then, later, he finally concluded, "We've got to look at everything in our program. Everything. A big part of me looks at it, and looks at some of the things that happened especially here in the last month of the season, and I'm not sure what you can do differently in games when guys get beat up. So I think it's just a little bit of bad luck, a bad luck streak. You go back to when we won 10 games, we were pretty darn healthy.
"I don't know. Maybe I'll flip some more coins or find a four-leaf clover or something."
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